Sweetfern, Comptonia peregrina, is neither sweet nor a fern, but is one of my favorite plants. It looks like something the dinosaurs would have walked through, and smells like all the warmest, spiciest, most magical aromas of imagination.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

If it's not raining, I try to comb cashmere for two hours in the morning

and one or two hours in the afternoon.

Today, though, being Saturday, there was no morning combing. I needed that time to gather up rubbish and recycling from the barns and the house and take it to the dump.

This afternoon I could have combed, as it was overcast but not raining. But Piper deserved some quality time with a person not too pooped to be good company.

We headed for the woods.

Funny thing: you know how a dog will jump up when the car keys jingle? Well today, Piper didn't wait for that. She jumped up when she saw me put a sketchbook and paints and brushes in a little pile.

We spent nearly two hours wandering around.

Trying to keep our feet dry. (Mostly me.)

Smelling things. (Mostly Piper.)

It was perfect light for soaking up colors.

Striped Maple buds looked almost black next to the deep green stems:

A single partridgeberry:

Color and texture:

I generally take many photographs of bark.

So today I also tried painting some bark.

Red oak, hemlock, and black birch:

Before I could add a fourth species, the sky suddenly grew darker and the temperature dropped. So Piper and I packed up and headed briskly out, just making it home in time to cover the hay. It was a very good couple of hours.

Piper had a grand time, even during the few minutes that I was painting. We have reached an agreement about how close a dog's head should be to a watercolor.

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